


Before the Dawn

by kuiske



Series: Close [4]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Ace!Thorin, Asexual Character, Established Relationship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 08:36:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5578726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuiske/pseuds/kuiske
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Usually Dwalin didn’t dream at all.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>But then, some nights he spent bathed both in darkness and in sunlight, with blood pooling at his feet and coating his hands, almost blinding him when the gash across his face was fresh once again.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before the Dawn

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Saetha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saetha/gifts).



> Happy Birthday Selina!
> 
> This fic is a pretty direct continuation of _May Sunshine_ and is happening during the same day.

Usually Dwalin didn’t dream at all.

But then, some nights he spent bathed both in darkness and in sunlight, with blood pooling at his feet and coating his hands, almost blinding him when the gash across his face was fresh once again. He didn’t have a body but he had hands and axes to strike at the monstrous faces that kept coming with spears, swords, maces or just teeth and claws to tear people down. The dead were everywhere he looked, familiar faces beaten unrecognisable. His father lay there fallen with his insides leaking out, Dwalin slipped in his father’s guts when he wasn’t looking at his feet, he had to gather them up so he could lift his corpse and carry him to a pyre to be burned. There wasn’t to be a grave, not even a grave to honour the fallen, not stone or song, just blood and fire and the stench of burning hair and flesh, again, always fire- 

Those were the better nights.

Dwalin stood on a plain of swaying green grass. The sun rode high above in the sky and there wasn't another living being in sight, though the scenery stretched from horizon to horizon undisturbed. He wanted to stop, but his feet wouldn’t stop walking, and no matter where he turned he was always moving towards a giant wheel that hung in the air before him. Dwalin didn’t want to look, he didn’t want to look at it, he knew what would happen if he looked too closely at the wheel that loomed over him, shining in the sunlight, enamelled steel or some other material he had no name for. He knew what would happen, but he had no choice. He stepped too close and the wheel started to turn.

It was slow at first, and though the wheel was suspended in nothing at all, there was a _noise_ , a screech like tortured metal. Then the wheel picked up speed. It was spinning before his eyes, colours blurring together and the noise grew louder every full circle. It was a scream, rising in pitch until he could barely hear it, and it hurt, it was agony to listen to it, the noise tore at his ears and settled under his skin and still the wheel spun; faster and faster and _faster_ , he had to make it stop, or else, or else something awful- 

Somehow Dwalin knew it was death to touch the wheel, so he concentrated with all he had to force it to slow down with his mind alone. He wasn't strong enough for this, but he had to keep trying, he had to keep concentrating, he had to hold the wheel back. It slowed down with a dreadful effort from him, and with the last of his strength he forced the wheel to _stop_ to a grinding halt. The noise died down and Dwalin let go, exhausted.

But as soon as he stopped holding the wheel back it started to move again, faster than before until it was a blur in front of him and he didn’t have it in him to slow it down again. The noise, the scream like something otherworldly rose above his hearing, but he could feel it tearing him slowly apart. It was terrifying; he was helpless and tiny and he knew if the wheel was allowed to turn any faster something would happen, something _horrible_ but he wasn’t strong enough. In a flash of blinding light that bent the world around him and tore it apart in shreds of green and blue gold, the wheel transformed; it was too late now and he wasn’t allowed to look away. He didn’t even have a head to turn or eyes to close, he couldn’t move, and the noise and the light crawled inside him and he could feel them moving in there, they were _alive_ and it _hurt_. He would’ve screamed and whimpered and wept if he'd had mouth, but he didn’t, he couldn’t, he couldn’t _breathe_ -

Dwalin woke up gasping with a piteous whine tearing out of his throat. For a while he lay on his back staring at the roof of the tent, unable to move. He couldn’t move and there was weight on his chest like he was suffocating, he couldn’t speak, or scream or _move_ \- and then he could, and it was staying still that became an impossibility. He scrambled out of his bedroll and out of the tent faster than if the watch had called out an alarm for an attack in the camp. The cool night air hit him in the face, but it didn’t calm him down. The air was full of smells that should’ve meant life but screamed death to him; flowers and growth and blood and ambush and _fuck!_

He would’ve welcomed an orc attack, almost, he definitely would’ve welcomed a chance for hard work as a distraction, but it was the dead of the night and it would’ve been unfair to wake everyone up just because he felt like he was bursting out of his skin with nervous energy. By the Maker, he wanted to _hit_ something, but he couldn’t even grab his weapons and take out his nerves on a tree that probably had it coming for some reason or other. If he made too much noise the men in the village might wake up and come to check, and if they saw him armed there’d be no work for them here tomorrow. It’d count as a mercy if they were driven out with simple words instead of stones and scythes and pitchforks. 

Dwalin needed to _move_ so he set for a brisk walk around the camp – brisk enough to appear angry, apparently, judging by the young lad standing watch who almost snapped to attention at the sight of him. Too young to have bled at Azanulbizar, the lad had without a doubt heard all the stories. He looked at Dwalin like he was half a legend marching out of a song and half a sergeant who’d caught him dozing in the watch. He favoured the lad – Eílfar, that was his name - with a curt nod. It wasn’t his fault Dwalin could neither sleep nor stay still, and besides he _had_ looked like he was paying sufficient attention to what he was supposed to be doing, so it wouldn’t do to terrify him unduly.

There were hardly enough of them in the caravan to make for a large camp; one round around it would never be enough to make him feel any better, but he couldn’t think of anything else to do either. He _hated_ these dreams, rare as they were. Battlefield visions were bad enough but at least he knew what they were, unlike this nonsensical abstract _fear_ that time after time again left him feeling tiny and nervous and _weak_ like after of a wound-fever, only without a wound. He wouldn’t sleep again tonight - in truth he had anticipated something like this and hadn’t wanted to sleep at all, but he had fallen prey to exhaustion and the warm comfort of Thorin curling up to his side.

And speaking of Thorin, Dwalin had thought he’d left him sleeping in their tent, but evidently he had woken him up after all, since he was leaning on a wagon on the southern edge of the camp, poorly feigning nonchalance.

“Shouldn’t you be abed?” Dwalin snapped, not entirely happy to see his trouble with bad dreams hadn’t gone unnoticed.

“Felt like a smoke,” Thorin replied evenly.

“ _Bullshit_.”

Thorin set his stuffed pipe on the wagon seat and picked up the oaken branch that’d given him his second name. 

“Well, I’ll probably feel like a smoke afterwards,” he said, and threw a solid punch at Dwalin’s shoulder.

Dwalin dodged Thorin’s fist with ease and aimed a punch at his face in turn. Thorin checked it with his shield and didn’t bother trying to hit him again, he merely defended himself as Dwalin's self control snapped. His vision swam crimson and he was snarling at the back of his throat like a wounded beast as he poured all of his anguish into the attack, into the sheer brutal violence he threw against his partner and King; vicious, mindless, _desperate_ -. 

And then it was over. 

Dwalin lowered his hands and took a step back, fists aching. He glanced at his knuckles and saw them stained black where the skin had been peeled off – or stained red in truth, but in the dead of night his blood looked black enough. His hands burned but he took a deep breath and his chest was wide enough for his lungs again and he could breathe with ease, he fit inside his own skin again. He’d be willing to shed a lot more blood for that alone. Thorin took his hands without a word and washed them with stinging cold water from his flask, then wrapped them in thin strips of cloth that were probably woefully unsuited to be used as bandages, but were clean at least. The look Thorin gave him in passing practically screamed _told you so_ as he picked up his pipe from the wagon seat and struck light to it with his flint. 

They didn’t speak a word while they smoked a pipeful of the cheap, sour leaf that was all they could afford, swapping Thorin’s pipe between the two of them. Nor did they break the silence when Thorin finally tapped the bowl clean of ashes and crushed the few glowing embers under the heel of his boot. It was only when they were back in the confines of their oilskin walls and settled down on their bedrolls that Dwalin muttered a gruff apology for disturbing Thorin’s sleep.

Thorin gave a noncommittal sort of grunt as a reply and knew better than to ask if Dwalin was all right. The question was utterly pointless since there was only one answer to it. _Of course_ he was all right. Thorin woke from nightmares more often than he did – _much_ more often than Dwalin had known before he'd started to share a bed with him – and he was all right too. So were Dís and Balin, so were all of them. They hadn’t really had the luxury of being anything else but _all right_ for a very long time now; it was a hard habit to shake even between just the two of them. Even when ‘all right’ somehow became the worst lie either of them ever told the other.

Darkness ate the blue out of Thorin’s eyes, but it never touched their warmth as he lifted his hand towards Dwalin’s face.

“Can I?” Thorin asked, voice barely above a whisper.

“Aye.”

Thorin cupped Dwalin’s cheek and pressed a soft kiss on his forehead, then another, and another, and softer ones still on his closed eyelids. He cradled Dwalin’s head in his hands, fingers stroking his beard and ghosting caresses over his face and throat. Any other time Dwalin might have been ashamed of the tiny, needy sound he let escape as he nuzzled against Thorin's hand, but though he would’ve never found the words to actually say it, tonight _all right_ meant _please keep touching me, I feel so bad_ and he didn't have it in him to be embarrassed. And he loved this, he loved Thorin’s hands and the way the hard callouses felt on his skin, he loved his fingers carding through the coarse hair of his beard and tugging it gently. Fuck, he loved _Thorin_ so much it hurt enough to drown out the pain of his skinned knuckles.

Dwalin gave Thorin a small smile and wrapped his arm around him, shuffling a bit so he could bury his nose in his hair. 

“You should get some sleep. It’s hours still ‘till dawn.”


End file.
